


The Awakening of a Passion

by libraryofruina



Category: Library of Ruina (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Drabble, F/M, kind of sort of - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-17 23:20:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29479836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/libraryofruina/pseuds/libraryofruina
Summary: Angela asks Roland to explain what the sun feels like.
Relationships: Angela (Lobotomy Corporation)/Roland (Library of Ruina)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 19





	The Awakening of a Passion

**Author's Note:**

> takes place somewhere in the middle of the star of the city, just don't think about it too hard, i wrote this in the beginning of december and then was like "ah shit i should post this" 
> 
> i am a functional author (i'm not)

“Roland,” Angela asks, his name falling from his lips before she can stop herself. “I have a question.” 

He stands up from where he’s seated on one of the many couches--seeming to feel a bit awkward, maybe even a bit improper sitting down while she’s standing, her hands folded over the front of her skirt as she stands, silently staring off into the distance of the warm, golden light of the Library. 

“Mm? What is it, Miss Angela?”

“The sun…” She says, and her voice is soft--different from her usual smooth monotone. Angela herself is aware of this, but isn’t sure how to speak differently, in the moment. “What does it feel like? The light, the warmth on your skin… Can you tell me?” 

Roland stares blankly at her for a moment, the gears in his head spinning. It takes a second for him to reply, his eyes darting from her, to the ground, to the yellow light, artificial and  _ fake _ despite it’s ethereal elegance. “Ahh, it’s…” His hand rises to the back of his neck, scratching it passively as he tilts his head. “Mm, ‘m trying to think of ways to describe it that aren’t just ‘it’s warm’...”

He looks back at her, and sees that she hadn’t removed her gaze from that light, eyes narrowing in a way that seems almost melancholy, an expression of yearning, longing… an uncharacteristic look of resignation. Her figure, lit by the golden, unearthly hue, looked inhuman, too beautiful to be something real.

The sad look in her eyes was more real than reality. The expression on her face was too human to  _ be _ human.

“It’s fine if that’s all you can say. In a way, I can understand it, when put like that.” Her lips are pursed, but it’s a far cry from her usual pout. Her eyes soften in a way that matches her voice, and she tilts her head, and stretches out her arm, attempting to grasp the light. “If the only thing that comes to your mind is warmth, then it must be… warm.” 

If Roland didn’t know better, he’d think she was about to cry.

“...I never saw the sunlight, but I do remember it.” She says, lowering her hand, turning it over to examine her empty palm. She folds her hands once more, one over the other, her picture perfect profile returned. “I remember it, but the feeling escapes me.”

Roland shoves his hands into his pockets. His shoulders feel tense. “...A feeling that slips out of your grasp, right? You have it in your hands, and you think,  _ ‘ah, I’ve almost got it…’ _ , but then…” He breathes out a laugh, but it’s half-hearted and self-deprecating. He shakes his head. “Feels like you weren’t ever able to reach it.” 

Angela’s lips part, and like a string pulled too taut--the picturesque, ethereal, unreal, unhuman, more human than human moment-- _ snaps _ . She turns to face him, her golden eyes wide, lips parted in silent, soft shock--more muted than direct, but the shock’s evident despite her watered down ability to emote. And then her eyes soften once more, surprise fading into something like relief. 

“Yes, that’s exactly it.” 

“It’s kind of a pathetic feeling.” Roland admits, resisting the urge to fidget, standing across from Angela. 

“Pitiful indeed.” Angela admits, her gaze fixed on the light again, like she can’t get enough again. But then again, Roland can understand that feeling. “And if… if it can’t be reached now, if it’s out of my grasp now, then when?”

Sometimes, Roland thinks Angela can look and act like a child. Whether it be the way she pouts and silently huffs when she doesn’t get what she wants, be it her way or a book, or the slight glimmer of innocent curiosity in her eyes when she stumbles upon something she doesn’t yet know. According to her, she’d lived through millennia, but sometimes it didn’t show at all. That childlike sense of a seemingly insatiable thirst to know more, more, more…

It was something that’d be stamped out like a bug underneath your heel, in the City. It feels like a rare sight, gossamer delicate, and just as easily wiped away. Part of him can’t find it in himself to understand the light she has amidst the darkness; the burning flame of her passion, her anger, her revenge--desire for freedom--a flame that he wonders, would it flicker out, when faced with the endless pitch black of the dreary, depressing, hopeless City?

“I wish I had an answer for you.” He says, and he’d intended to say it with bite, snark, sarcasm--he  _ wanted _ to hide underneath the cool black of his suit, crimson bloodstains bleeding into that same pitch black of the city, the dirt and grime a camouflaged similarity, a near exact match--but in the golden light of the Library, it feels like there’s nothing he can hide, and his words come out too genuine. They come out as something too close to kindness and care. 

Didn’t he know better than that?

She doesn’t glance back at him this time, instead keeping her gaze fixed on one point. “I suppose it was a bit stupid of me to expect you’d know.”

Roland feels himself flinch a little at that, like her words had struck him at the most unexpected angle. He clears his throat as silently as he can and laughs. “You only have yourself to blame, Miss Angela~”

At his words, Angela turns her head, chin tilted up, golden eyes flickering like the flame of a candle. Roland wonders, if he got closer, would he see himself reflected in them? Who would he see staring back? The “Roland” he sees in the mirror? Or the “Roland” Angela sees in front of her? Putting it like that felt as if his very existence seemed out of reach, like the light the two of them were trying so desperately to capture in their outstretched hands.

“I wasn’t insulting you,” She clarifies, like that helps. “I’ve said it before. The Library is full of limitless possibilities. It doesn’t matter if reaching that ‘light’ and ‘warmth’ is something impossible. This place, that I created with my own hands…” 

Angela trails off, lips pursed once more. Roland quietly stares, unsure of what to say. Gnawing at his lip, his throat process returns to her earlier question: the feeling of the sun, the feeling of warmth and light. “It’s warm,” He says, again, feeling a bit stupid the second the words come out of his mouth. Angela raises an eyebrow, a silent invitation to continue. “The sun is. Can be kind of annoying some days, if I’m out and about, gets kinda sweaty sometimes. A pain when you’re wearing black. It’s bright, even when it’s overcast. Don’t look right into the sun when you eventually see it, though, you’ll hurt your eyes. But… it’s warm.”

“...When I eventually see it…” She repeats, like she’s savoring the words on her tongue. She nods, more to herself than anything else. “I suppose I’ll find out then.” 

Roland smiles. “I hope you’ll enjoy the sun when you see it.”

She tilts her head at him, a pure, straightforward look of confusion. “Why are you talking like you won’t be by my side? You’ll be seeing it with me, did you forget you promised to take me sightseeing?” 

“...Huh?” Roland can’t curb the shock off of his face. “I did, but--” 

With a  _ clink  _ of her heels, Angela turns to face him fully. The golden glow illuminates the contours of her face--high cheekbones, slightly slanted eyes, long eyelashes, the softness and fluffiness of her hair made all the more evident by the warm light. “I’ll say it again, Roland. The Library is a place full of infinite possibilities and infinite potential. There’s proof in your being here, in a place that was impossible to enter. It shouldn’t have happened, but it did. You’re here now, and there’s no going back until we have the light.

“Even if that light is something impossible to hold, I know we’ll one day reach it, and grasp it in our hands without it escaping or slipping through our fingers. And when we reach that light, myself, all of the other librarians, and you, will be free. But until then, you’re bound to this place in the same manner as I am. And after that, I expect you to show me all the sights you bragged so much about.” 

“...You’re a real slave driver, you know that?”

Angela gives him a smile, and softly laughs. “I’m sure the reward will be well worth it in the end, so wait patiently until then.”

Roland sighs. “It’s not as if I have much of a choice, Miss Angela~”

“Only for now. Once I’ve reached my freedom, you’ll no longer be bound to the Library, and may go as you wish. But,” She pauses, like she’s considering her words carefully. “But I think I’d dislike it, if you weren’t by my side after the fact.”

Eyes wide, Roland feels his jaw fall open at Angela’s words (demands?), and silently closes it the second he’s realized. A strange ache rises up in his chest, a familiar feeling, gnawing at him like a hunger. He wants to push it down, that insatiable yearning for something he feels is out of his reach. And even if it isn’t--even when it isn’t--even when it wasn’t--who’s to say he won’t lose it again, that warmth, that light?

It’d be easier to do this properly, as a Fixer, to harden his heart, wear his pitch colored, bloodstained, dirtied suit, to bury his feelings so deep their seeds grow forests, tall trees that obscure everything, obscure even his own heart from view. It’d be easier, it’d be smarter, it’d be  _ safer. _

But, seeing that look in Angela’s eyes, that flickering candle flame of passion, the childish gleam, the dazzle that he couldn’t just look past. Even though he’d given up on the inevitable corruption of every sorry fuck that walked into the city… even though he knew better…

Roland thinks about the golden light around them. He thinks of what Angela’s explained about creating the Library, the details she’d chosen to share and explain in a way that made sense. He thinks about EGO, and the feelings that resonate. He thinks about Lobotomy Corporation’s prior appearance that Angela's explained before--the steel grey and dark blue and black, cold colors that suited her well enough, but, here, and now…

Seeing Angela bathed in the golden light that she yearned for so desperately, the longing that was evident in the warmth of the Library’s colors and sound, the… almost  _ coziness _ of it… Seeing Angela, who saw herself as lacking light, but who’s brilliance was blinding at times…

It made Roland wonder--it almost made him believe--that the lights reflecting off of him could be dazzling, too. He wonders if he could protect that light of hers throughout the endless darkness of the City, to not let it be sucked up and stained black like his. His thoughts run and spin in circles, bouncing from thought to thought so erratically it almost gives him a headache, and then, he realizes.

There was one surefire way to get the answers to his questions, and that was to stay.

When he catches Angela’s eyes again, they make eye contact, and she smiles. A soft, tender smile, and he sees himself reflected in her eyes, sees himself bathed in that warm golden light he never thought he’d see again, Roland feels a flicker of the warmth he’d never thought he’d  _ feel _ again.

And he smiles back.

**Author's Note:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rna59xawK7I&ab_channel=StarryBanana title taken from this--it's not required listening by any means, but it might enhance the experience a bit, and further emphasize the meaning that's meant to be conveyed.
> 
> do you ever think about how angela made the library herself and thus a lot of things in the library reflect on her desires hey do you ever think about how the library is like all warm toned colors. hey angela do you need warmth or something. hey angela. angela. pick up the phone. (hod voice) you were the loneliest of us all
> 
> (lays face down on the ground) library of ruining my life
> 
> sorry this is so short............. i wanted my first fic for them to be longer but us roland/angela stans have so little sauce as is (shout out to the one other person in the roland/angela ao3 tag, i would die for you) so i figured i may as well add to the pile. expect more someday i have like 80 wips that i just sorta pick at for a while
> 
> ty for reading, if you enjoyed, feel free to leave a kudo, comment, or hmu on twitter @shindouchrono
> 
> have a good day :D


End file.
